


Every Breath I (Can't) Take

by LiberAmans214



Series: The Last Ride [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Anxious Dean Winchester, Castiel Leaves (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel/Dean Winchester Angst, Dean Winchester Has Abandonment Issues, Dean Winchester Has Anger Issues, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Dean Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Dean Winchester Has Panic Attacks, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean Winchester Has a Heart, Dean is heartbroken, Depressed Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Panic Attacks, Season/Series 15, Stop Hurting Cas 2k19, and s a d, sam winchester is a good brother, spn 15x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 11:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21355771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiberAmans214/pseuds/LiberAmans214
Summary: Dean grabs onto the slab tighter, because his knees feels weak. He needed to get a hold on himself. His head reels, but it isn't like he can stop thinking. One painful thought shoved the last out of the way, and each stream of scenes seemed to take him farther away from the present.Cas had walked out.Dean couldn't get him back and pull him home. Not if he wasn't being dragged away in the first place. And that's the crux, isn't it? Some part of him sneers at him. He wasn't being taken away. He had decided to leave.Dean Winchester had always screwed things up, messed up his life, and almost broke the world a couple of times - but Castiel had never left.He'd always been there. He'd lifted him from his road to corruption. He'd threatened to stay when Dean had the Mark of Cain. He'd refused to let go till the demon in him had been controlled. He'd always walked right beside him, when they fought for Good, for Family, for the World, and for each other.Andnow,he was gone.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester
Series: The Last Ride [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539529
Comments: 6
Kudos: 109





	Every Breath I (Can't) Take

**Author's Note:**

> This is based right after the ending scene of 15x03.

Sam doesn't come out of his room all night.

Dean waits till it's night, then goes out. He contemplates checking on him another time when he's back, this time with food, but it's the lack of sound through Sam's door which makes him change his mind. Maybe his brother had fallen asleep. And Dean definitely wanted him to rest. Kid needed it, deserved it - really fucking earned it.

So instead, he has dinner by himself, forcing himself to not think about any of it. The deafening silence provokes every bit of emotion he's felt that day to roar back to life. But he shoves them down, follows it with food, and buries it there with alcohol.

When he's finished, he can't bother clearing up. His limbs feel like they'll drop off. He's been on patrol most nights, and the mornings were used up trying to figure out solutions. He's done, and tired, and ready to pass out.

So he picks up his beer - huh, that's far too empty; so then he drains it in a single gulp, and picks up the entire sixpack, and goes to his room.

And that's that. He's managed to make it through the first night.

*

He doesn't know how he manages to fall asleep. He's almost sure he won't be able to, until his head hits the pillow, his back settles in the warm mattress and his feet stretch. He still doesn't think he'll sleep that night - but it's soon that he's completely knocked out.

It's a dreamless slumber though, and he wakes to the world, one eye blinked open at a time - a tired shell of a man; the weight of his losses just beginning to settle.

He gets up.

And tells himself that had he kept lying, horizontal, the pain would just have sedimented at the bottom, and that's just where Dean always was anyways. He'd have gotten crushed under the densing pressure.

So instead, he makes himself stop thinking again, and showers.

*

When Dean drags himself into the kitchen, his head painfully points out that Cas isn't there. Before, he used to be right there, with a cup of coffee on the days Dean was lucky, waiting to ask him how he’d slept.

(When Dean misses Cas, he always misses this version of him, who lived in the bunker and truly lived there too. Back then, Dean could breathe him in the sheets, find him in front of every shelf in the library, and hear him in all the hallways. He used to be so _present_. Good fucking times.) 

Dean's eyes involuntarily swept the place. As if Cas had snuck back in at night, and might be perched in a particularly camouflaged nook, waiting for Dean to notice.

As if he was ever coming back.

Dean swallowed. Hard. The thoughts he'd fought so hard to keep away were all pushing their way back in. The longer he twitched at Cas's absence. His chest started to constrict.

Gone was the sleep-roughened voice, though he didn't fucking sleep - still so gentle when it addressed him with a 'good morning, Dean'. Missing were the blue, blue eyes which followed Dean as he cluttered around the space to make them both breakfast. No longer, did Dean get to accidentally brush against Cas's shoulder in his hustle - and receive an upturned smile through his eyelashes, when he landed across Cas with his plate full.

Maybe Dean imagines it, but he thinks he swayed on his feet a little bit. And reaches for the counter, just to be sure.

Maybe he's still drunk.

Cas had walked out. And taken with him, all of himself. The talkative smile had disappeared; so soft, enthralling and oh, so contagious.

And _then_, dawned the earth-shattering realization that Cas was _not_. Here. Anymore.

Cas used to disappear during the day, angelic errands and noble mercies and whatnot; and Dean ate out at motels and clubs, most nights - but this was a morning_. _Mornings were what they used to have.

And the fact that Cas wasn't here anymore - that he'd _left_ Dean, left him with that piercing speech, and those flashing eyes, and the finality in the air. And he'd not let it strike him yet - so it struck the hardest yet.

Cas has been wrenched away from him many times. There's been apocalypses, there's been betrayals and there's been the good of the world.

But it's only ever been a compulsion. Cas _had_ to go. It _had_ to happen. The World must be saved, God needed to be found, Lucifer had got to be beaten. And Castiel, hero that he was, such a goddamn courageous sonuvabitch - had to go! It was undeterrable, and Dean had always struggled to let him go - but at least, at the _very_ least, it had always been demanded, all those times.

This time? It had been a choice.

And the selfishness he didn't know he'd been masking, roared in his ears; it was _never_ fine to be away from Cas. But it had still been something Dean was used to, it was relatively _okay_ if the reasons were unstoppable. If it was inevitable. But, this was different.

Dean grabs onto the slab tighter, because his knees feels weak. He needed to get a hold on himself. His head reels, but it isn't like he can stop thinking. One painful thought shoved the last out of the way, and each stream of scenes seemed to take him farther away from the present.

Cas had walked out.

Dean couldn't get him back and pull him home. Not if he wasn't being dragged away in the first place. And that's the crux, isn't it? Some part of sneered. He wasn't being taken away. He had decided to leave.

Dean Winchester had always screwed things up, messed up his life, and almost broke the world a couple of times - but Castiel had never left.

He'd lifted him from his road to corruption. He'd threatened to stay when Dean had the Mark of Cain. He'd refused to let go till the demon in him had been controlled.

And now, he was gone.

Dean's eyes sting, so he screws them shut, and his mouth is dry. He's been clutching onto the counter for a while now, and his knuckles are white now. He's heaving with every breath.

_Cas was gone._

Suddenly, it was all that mattered.

Or perhaps, it was all that had ever really mattered, and all that would ever really matter.

But he was _gone_, and he was done with Dean, and Dean had driven him off, and he wasn't coming back. No, of course he wasn't, because he was _moving on_ \- he was moving on from Dean.

Dean's panting now. He has no idea why. He can't stop thinking - about anything, about everything, about nothing at all. He wishes he could. No, this was hyperventilating.

How could Dean ever have told him that there was no moving on for him. From what Cas meant to Dean, and the magnitude of e everything he took up in Dean's life - there wasn't any filling that, not with _anything_ else.

He hadn't said any of it. He'd said absolutely nothing at all. And he should've. Because a Chrysler-shaped piece of his life had been ripped away, and Cas had walked out of the bunker and not looked back. And Dean could never move on from the way he'd looked at Dean - like he wanted Dean to stop him, but didn't believe that he would. Dean could never move on from any of it, at all.

Dean's chest hurts. His lungs fight for air, but his senses don't comply. He can't breathe, and he feels like he might choke.

Cas. _Cas!_ Cas had left him. Cas wouldn't be back! Cas was gone. Cas was -

There are tears streaming down his face.

How had he let this happen? How did he not even move? Cas had been in front of him, why hadn't he been able to stop him then? How had he pushed him away so far, that Cas forgot how much Dean needed him to come back? How could he have -

Dean was a fucking asshole. He'd been a goddamn jackass. Cas should hate him. Cas _did_ hate him. Cas needed to come back, but Dean deserved this, and yet -

"Ahh!" He growls, trying to make himself stop. He's trembling, his face is burning up, the tears won't stop. He needs to stop thinking, about Cas, about everything -

Cas doesn't want anything to do with him, anymore. Dean won't ever get to see those eyes again. Make him laugh. Fight by his side. Clink his beer to his, or make fun of his tastes in movies. Dean wasn't going to get any more of Cas.

Because Cas was moving on. He had upped, and gathered all of himself, and walked out of Dean's life. But he'd forgotten to take with him the pieces which were studded in Dean's soul, the wisps of grace that had flowed through Dean's veins since Hell had happened, and all the love that Dean had collected for Cas in his heart.

Dean gasps, struggling. He's sweating profusely, and he might have fallen if he hadn't been holding onto the slab. "AHHH!"

The last sound is wrenched from his gut, as Dean's hands give up on him, and he stumbles. He reaches out to catch hold of something, anything - his head spirals, he knows he's going to fall -

"Dean?"

Dean turns wildly at the voice, hoping in his state of desperation that it's -

"Dean, are you okay?" Sam runs towards him, his eyes wide with concern. "Fuck, Dean, what happened? Calm down!" His hands held Dean up, almost bringing him into a hug - or maybe that was Dean who was doing that. "You're having a panic attack, Dean! Sit down! What's happening? What do you need? Say something!"

"Sam." Dean lets his weight fall on Sam, but it still felt like all of the guilt never stops pushing down on him. His voice shivers, just as he does, as he looks at his younger brother, who looks frenzied at his state. Had Dean seen himself, he wouldn't have been particularly reassured, either.

"It's Cas." His voice cracks, and Sam swears under his breath, probably assuming the worst. And then Dean tells him. "Sammy, _Cas left_."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This came out sadder than it was supposed to. And as much as I hate Dean being sad, I kind of selfishly want something like this on the show, for the fucking magnitude of realization. For him to GET IT. 
> 
> Ugh. #MakeDestielHappenYouCowards2k19
> 
> Leave a comment <3 Please have a great day!


End file.
